Allegra swallowed, and hoped the vulgar sound wasn’t audible in this extremely quiet room. If she had occasion to scream, which she was beginning to think she easily might, would anyone outside hear her?
‘Lady Milton, I am very well aware that your son might look much higher for a bride, in terms of birth, breeding, wealth and beauty. I also assume that you must wish him to, as must his friends, since all the world knows that my father is a gentleman of modest fortune and my mother is of Italian birth, and also that I have three younger sisters, none of us with any portion to speak of. I am not so foolish as to see myself as any kind of catch, so I don’t know why he has singled me out; he has given me no indication. All I can do is assure you that I have employed no arts to entrap him, since I don’t possess any.’
‘That is quite evident.’
A tense little silence fell. At length Allegra, finding it unendurable, broke it. ‘If you have nothing more to say to me, ma’am…’
‘I have not nearly done with you yet, girl.’ Lady Milton’s face was impassive as she went on, ‘I understand that both your older sisters are married and have not delayed in setting up their nurseries, one with some cit or other and another with Winterflood. A duke! I have no idea how your mother pulledthatoff. She is to be congratulated.’
There was no point in beating about the bush. Allegra was proud that she could keep her voice level while she uttered the distasteful truth. ‘I do not know that my mother had any hand in the matter, in truth, though I know people like to say she did. The Duke must have been aware of the fact that my oldest sister, Mrs Da Costa, gave birth to a son within a year of her marriage, as you mentioned. She has had another since, and is increasing again.’
‘I take your meaning, although the reference is most indelicate, coming from a young unmarried woman. But I will let that pass for the moment. You imply that Winterflood heard this news and took a calculated risk. Which has paid off handsomely, I believe.’
‘My sister the Duchess has twin sons.’ Allegra didn’t care for the direction of this conversation, and she liked even less being forced to discuss her siblings as if they were so much breeding stock, especially Viola, who had been treated as such and felt the pain of it. But facts were facts.
Lady Milton sniffed. ‘Winterflood must be delighted. I suppose he had almost given up hope. There must always be something highly displeasant in seeing a man of his age and position looking about him in such evident desperation for a bride who will give him an heir at last after decades of failure.’
‘I cannot say, ma’am; it is none of my affair.’
‘Nor mine, you are bold enough to imply? Well, you are possessed of at least some discretion, I see, though it has been regrettably tardy in making an appearance.’
Enough of this. ‘I couldn’t possibly guarantee to give your son an heir, just because my sisters have succeeded in their own marriages. No one can make that promise; my mother has six daughters and no son, so I for one am not so rash.’
‘You are disagreeably pert, Miss Constantine.’
‘I hope I am honest, Lady Milton. I have a great many disadvantages, but you knew that already. And I’m sure that if you don’t want your son to marry me, he won’t. He has made me no offer.’
‘You cannot imagine that I am unaware of that. Your mother is of noble birth?’
‘That’s correct, ma’am.’
‘From where? What was her father’s title? Does she have relatives still living?’
Allegra blinked at the fusillade of questions, and tried to keep her head and answer them in a sensible manner. Leontina did not talk about her past much, even at home, nor did she use the style of countess to which she was apparently entitled by Italian custom. But Allegra knew a little: just a few scraps. ‘The family originated in Verona, I believe, and my mother’s branch moved to the city of Piacenza in the train of the Farnese dukes, to whom they were related by marriage, and were ennobled by them in the rank of count. But my grandfather and grandmother died when my mama was young, and she has no close relatives living. Her home is under French rule now, of course, and her ancestral lands in the Po valley and the surrounding hills have fallen into their hands along with so much else.’
‘I daresay.’ Lady Milton clearly thought the current Frenchregime in very poor taste indeed, an opinion in which the millions of people across Europe whose lives it had destroyed would no doubt concur. ‘What was their surname?’
‘Orlandi Veronese.’ It had a fine sound, Allegra thought, as it rolled from the tongue. Surely even Lady Milton would be impressed.
‘I suppose it is to the good that you no longer maintain connections with these…’ The lady’s pinched mouth formed an O, but she could go no further; the effort of pronouncing one foreign word, let alone two, was far too fatiguing to be contemplated, and Allegra understood that the distinguished name was nothing more than noise to her, like dogs barking. ‘These people, however illustrious their lineage.’
‘My mother is the last of her line, I believe. Her siblings all died in childhood. So even if contact were possible in these times of war…’
Lady Milton greeted with obvious approval the news that Leontina’s entire family were safely in their graves. ‘Your mother seems a practical woman. Eminently so. I suppose therefore she has acquainted you with the concept of a marriage of convenience? This must be the case, since your sister’s union with Winterflood can be nothing else; one could not without being perfectly ridiculous describe it as alovematch.’ She pronounced these last two words with extraordinary distaste.
‘I am familiar with the idea, ma’am.’ And all the misery it can bring, she thought.
Lady Milton let out a sound which in a less well-bred woman would have been described as a snort. ‘I should hope you are. Well, I will consider the matter, and share my thoughts with my son when I have formulated them. You are disagreeably forward, but so are most young women these days, I have observed, and when they show me a meek face, I do not trust it either. I have notaste for hypocrites. At least you put on no airs to be interesting, nor do you give the impression that the facts of married life when revealed to you would make you faint away in shock and need reviving with hartshorn and water. You have child-bearing hips, I observe. Do your sisters nurse their own children?’
Allegra blinked. Much as she wished to say that this intimate fact was none of Lady Milton’s business, she found that her mouth opened of its own accord, and what emerged was: ‘Yes, they do. My mother distrusts wet nurses, and counselled them to follow her example in declining to employ them.’
‘Quite right, they are all of them drunkards and women of ill repute, more likely to kill a child than rear it safely. She nursed six?’ Allegra could only nod feebly. ‘I was only blessed with one, and if I were inclined to question Providence… But no matter. Motherhood is a lifelong trial, but heaven has sent it to us and we must bear it. Well, Miss Constantine, I cannot say that I am thrilled at the prospect of this union, but I suppose it could have been worse. I cannot hold your foreign blood against you, since it is noble. My own grandmother,’ she confided, as if disclosing a highly embarrassing secret, ‘was German, a lady-in-waiting to the queen of the day.’
Unsure if she should commiserate or congratulate her, Allegra said nothing, and Lady Milton added abruptly, ‘Do not dally. You are dismissed.’ Allegra rose to her feet, only to have another startling question fired at her before she could make her escape. ‘You are not papists? Your mother must have been raised a papist.’
This was the fault of the cross about her neck, Allegra thought. ‘No, ma’am. My mother grew up here, in the Church of England. I cannot say what her ancestors might have been.’ Very likely they worshipped the Devil, being poor, ignorant foreigners, or perhaps trees or oddly shaped stones. She felt an almostirresistible temptation to say as much, just to see this woman’s face change in horror.
‘Good, good. I could not countenance a papist, whatever Alfred might say. One must draw the line somewhere. Now go.’
